A remarkable Australian

Margaret Olley
has been fondly remembered as a remarkable Australian with an unshakeable passion for people, life and art at a state memorial service in Sydney.

About 500 people gathered on Wednesday inside the Art Gallery of NSW, where flags flew at half mast and Ben Quilty’s Archibald Prize-winning portrait of Ms Olley hung in tribute to the late painter and philanthropist.

Ms Olley’s niece, Sally Wilkinson, was with her the night before she died.

“She said to me not long ago that she wasn’t ready to die, she had so much to do," Ms Wilkinson said.

“She was like a second mother to me. Her last words to me were ‘I love you, now let me rest’."

There were hints of the artist’s darker side too, when an interview was played in which she gave a frank account of a suicide attempt and described her battle with alcoholism.

Art Gallery of NSW director
Edmund Capon
remembered Ms Olley, his close friend and a patron of the gallery, as a remarkable, fiercely independent talent who spoke her own mind.

Mr Capon and Ms Wilkinson called for Ms Olley’s Paddington home, jam-packed with the artist’s work and objects of inspiration, to be preserved.